Great Britain Hockey : “Delighted to see the hard-work in training pay-off.” Sam Ward

Great Britain’s men continued their strong start to the FIH Pro League with a fourth away win from five matches, this time a 1-0 victory in Moenchengladbach, ahead of their first home match of the competition on Saturday 4 May against Spain.

Also securing a clean-sheet over Germany, Great Britain now hold the joint best defensive record in the FIH Pro League, and Ward was delighted to see the hard-work in training pay-off:

“It was a brilliant result against Germany, the boys were fantastic, and I think it just shows our maturity going out and beating them in their back yard. I think our commitment in deep defence and our shape is something that has massively progressed, we’re just getting better and better.

“Going out there and keeping the ball out of the net is massive and it’s an honour to everyone really. The way we’re playing with a compact defence shows and it’s nice to see in the stats that we are keeping the ball out of the net.

“We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing and build on that. We’ve still got a lot left to give and we’re only at the start of our journey, we just need to keep giving what we can and we’ll get better and better.”

Great Britain can look forward to a first home FIH Pro League match on Saturday when Spain visit Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, and if the reverse fixture is anything to go by, it’s set to be a thrilling game:

“The Pro League is bringing lots of goals and exciting hockey and I don’t think it gets much more exciting than a 6-5 victory from 4-1 down, so I think we’re giving what the fans want.” said Ward when reflecting on the last time the two sides met in Valencia, “I hope Saturday’s game is just as good!”

“Both sides like to play attacking hockey with a lot of flair, it could be down to who can take more of their counter-attacking chances.

“I’m excited to play a home game, hopefully coming back to Lee Valley this weekend we’ll be able to go out and put in a cracking performance in-front of our own crowd.

“Our first home game is going to be massive for us. We’re hoping for a big crowd, whatever happens as long as people there get behind us it makes a massive difference to us.”

With the women’s team playing their first home FIH Pro League match whilst the men’s team were away in Germany, Ward revealed how the squad kept up to date with the game in London:

“I’ve been following quite a bit of the women’s matches so far in the Pro League.

“We finished training on Saturday and got the game up on a laptop to watch the USA match as a group. It was great to see them win the shootout and get a couple of points on the board, hopefully they’ll be able to build from that this week and beat China on Friday.”

Following their dramatic shootout conclusion last time out, watch Great Britain’s women face China in their second home match of the FIH Pro League